Analyst: DRM-free music beneficial, but unlikely

and hello to me actually purchasing music on the iTMS. The only tracks I have from there right now I got for free, and unless the DRM goes away, I don't plan to actually spend money on any.

Listen to us RIAA - we WANT to buy music. Make it more appealing for us to do so!

I know people have said this umpteen times before, but let's say it again for the slow ones that haven't caught it.

If you really don't want your songs in AAC format, they don't have to be. All you need is iTunes, 10¢ for a blank CD-R, and an exta 1-10 minutes after the song has downloaded. Just burn your songs to the disk (as you should be doing anyway to back up your purchase) and re-import them in iTunes from the disc as another format. It can be mp3, AIFF, MPEG, Apple Lossless, AAC or whatever. If you bought a whole Album, then the names and info are found in the online database with no hassel to you. If not, you may have to spend 5 minutes or so copying and pasting the track name, artist name, album name, etc.

If you want to use a different player, then it probably comes with its own app and all you have to do is have that App reference your iTunes library or simply move your music from the iTunes library to that application's library.

The only reason for people whining here is laziness. You would spend just as much time importing from a CD you buy as from importing songs from a disc burnt from iTunes.

There isn't now nor has there ever been a real lock on music you buy from iTMS. I'm certain Apple would post these instructions if they didn't have to try and appease the Labels with their effort of DRM. Of course, this purported issue wouldn't exist if the labels didn't RERQUIRE drm. As much attention as the possibility is getting, I suspect it will still be a while before we see any change. The Labels won't give up their one current "control: at stopping piracy, as ineffective as it is.

reripping and recompressing a lossy format makes it even more crap, but probably you are too slow to understand it

Let's just think about the systems you're playing the music over. Much of the time, mine is just over my laptop or car audio speakers. Why would I need a space hogging pristine format if much of it is lost by the audio devices it plays through? If I'm worried about sound quality, it's only when I record, and then I DO save in a high quality format. In any event, these burn-reimport songs sound excellent over studio monitors, and not much of the depth is lost. In fact, AAC sounds far better than MP3 at the same bitrate, in my experience.

I did test and compare with a couple of songs before going through with this, so don't presume that people who do so lack understanding of compression issues. I think it quite obvious that you don't buy much music from the iTMS from your comment, so why not verify before just going by the numbes and insulting others' intelligence.

Thanks.

You don't have to recompress in a lossy format.

Maybe we are lazy not wanting to rerip the songs, But that's beside the point. If there was no DRM to start with, I wouldn't have to even think about it. I just get my music and do whatever I want with it.

The whole point of digital music is supposed to be convenience, but DRM takes that away.

Danviento, When you convert the AAC to CD you don't loose quality there.. but you will loose some sound quality going back to an AAC or MP3 file. You would only need to do this with songs purchased b/c iTunes can cross convert unprotected formats easily. What I do is re-record the songs purchased via WireTap Pro. It listens to the song and saves it in any format (usually unprotected AAC for Me) but it will do MP3, AIFF, etc...

I'm very happy with the sound quality of this method but it's apples to oranges I guess. I have noticed a degradation of sound from the itunes to cd to itunes method that I don't hear with WireTap Pro. You can use other audio utilities that are free that will also record your macs internal sounds. I hope this helps.. Cheers.

webraider inadvertently makes the point that DRM is effective as far as, your average person is NOT a geek and will not bother with ripping and re-converting in order to lose the DRM.

Is it easy for you and I? Yes. Is the average person too lazy to bother to learn something that is really relatively simple? Yes. Just imagine describing the process to your mother or father. Their eyes would glaze over around step 2.

There are probably plenty of folks just as intelligent and computer-savvy as you and I, who wouldn't bother to do a tune-up on their own car even though most of it is relatively simple. It's all a matter of what you are familiar and comfortable with... so don't be so smug about those 'lazy' people out there who can't be bothered to bypass DRM by burning and re-ripping.